Business publishers engage audiences on tablets

To date, we’ve seen many media publishers – organizations who make their money by producing and selling content – taking advantage of new digital publishing opportunities on tablet devices. The next big wave on the horizon involves business publishers – organizations who make their money in ways other than selling content and use digital publishing to extend their brand and engage their audiences. Major brands like Mercedes-Benz, EMI Music, Deloitte, Audi, Red Bull, the US Marine Corps and others are seeing tablet publications as a way to engage their constituents with extended information in a highly designed format.

For example, Mercedes-Benz South West, a Mercedes dealership in the United Kingdom, published a magazine highlighting lifestyle and product content targeted at the Mercedes customer (download app). The goal, according to Mike Wickins, managing director, Mercedes-Benz South West is to further engage with customers. “Mercedes-Benz is a brand that is known for quality and innovation and our new Points West iPad app continues in that tradition. With Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, we redesigned what was a product-focused print magazine into a format that is more engaging to the Mercedes-Benz consumer,” said Wickins. “With interactivity, videos, and sound clips, the Points West iPad digital magazine let us show off our vehicles in a manner that is informative and unique. At the same time we were able to bring the latest Mercedes-Benz news and South West related content to life, keeping our brand relevant and current in the eyes of our clients.”

Other organizations are using digital publications to engage with their constituents.

The US Marine Corps publishes Marines Magazine, a media vehicle used to engage Marines, their family members, veterans’ service organizations, and educational institutions (download app). Since releasing the second edition of the magazine on the App Store, the Marines experienced more than a thousand downloads in the first week alone – all without any specific marketing campaign.

EMI Music released an app featuring dedicated to one of its artists, Swedish House Mafia (download app). The Swedish House Mafia app connects passionate fans with the music they love. In the App fans can flick, swipe, slide and tap their way though a rich audio-visual narrative account of life in Swedish House Mafia. In addition to the full nine-track US version of the ‘Until One’ album the app includes multiple video segments from the band’s ‘Take One’ documentary, a beautiful interactive black and white photo gallery of over 150 photos and links to live Twitter and Facebook pages to keep fans up to date on the very latest Swedish House Mafia news.

Credit Suisse, the global financial services firm, was one of the first business publishers to take advantage of this new form factor with its client magazine – Bulletin (download app). Published five times a year, bulletin provides highly focused information about banking, the economy, and technological trends to Credit Suisse clients. This medium allows the banking firm to extend its brand and reach its constituents in new and engaging ways.

In addition:

TED Conferences uses the solution to create program guides for its events (download app)

Carlsberg Group, the Danish brewer, published its annual report using the solution (download app)

The State of Colorado published the official state vacation & travel guide in this digital medium (download app)